Zumi 8 months
Zumi turned 8 months old today. Feels like such a grown up age to me. 7 months still feel so "puppy" like but this milestone is magically mature.
She finally got her new big girl collar. Lime green and blue to match the boys, but Zumi's sparkles :)
Training wise we're focusing on big girl stuff. Still major props to me for continuing my motivation on scent article practice. For the most part Zumi can work pile of 5 metal articles with me right at the pile and has had one session with me at a distance. Only rarely do I need to interrupt frantic grabbing. Zumi recently graduated to doing a set of leather bracelets. I will need to build distance on those, and continue to build confidence on the types separately. Current plan is to start new metal and leather objects but not combining the two types for awhile yet to prevent her from developing a preference.
More focus on heeling recently as well. Starting to work on forward motion now more than just a few steps. Focusing on building up a rhythm so worrying less about precision and more about focus and drive. She has pivots and sidesteps down fairly solid so I know I can eventually merge that back in and get precision with the forward motion too.
Of course in agility I've already written about starting her running dogwalk training. And doing a little bit more work on short sequences. Discovered that the Duck needs quite a bit of work on call to hand as she easily slips into wide orbits and thinks nothing of going behind me in her orbits.
No new tricks. Resuming some work on getting back some of the earlier tricks I taught her that I haven't done in months. Sad, Scootch, and shame all are broken and unfortunately all are currently supposed to be done from a down position which makes working on them harder. I try not to do 2 tricks in a row from the same position with an inexperienced dog, especially if the tricks aren't well known. It just makes switching between behaviors harder.
That's a great tip about not working on tricks in the same position back to back. I never thought of that before but it makes sense.
I can't believe she's eight months already! It feels like you just got her but that's probably because I got so behind on your blog. She's so pretty. I love her new sparkly collar. :-)
I can't wait until she can start competing. I'm so excited to see how she likes it! Don't forget disc dog training too!!!! Hehe! It's not like you have a full plate or anything lol!